Technology and R&D

Product development company the Cambridge Design Partnership, working with compatriot solar business Solivus, has developed a curved solar module featuring an organic thin film. The design is based on Solivus’ desire to “create a product so attractive that people would be happy to have one in their garden”.

The proposed model is said to perform better at energy prediction than software tools such as PVWatts, PVSyst or RetScreen. The approach was validated on two 5 MW PV plants in the same district of the Indian state of Rajasthan.

Chinese researchers have developed a pure EVA film, which they claim can enhance the conversion efficiency of conventional crystalline solar cells by around 0.50%. The film is able to convert UV light into strong visible light.

US scientists are proposing a new approach to calculating the optimum angular-tilt of PV panels for a planar surface at a particular site. In their view, the new technique may unlock innovative yield optimization methods for the installation of PV systems.

Materials that can recover energy wasted in the form of heat and convert that into electricity can pave the way for devices that can be coupled with new renewable technologies such as solar-thermoelectric and Lithium batteries.

European research group Solliance says its perovskite modules have passed three key industry standard reliability tests: Light soaking, damp heat and thermal cycling. The group said it is the first time perovskite modules of that size have achieved such results and represents a milestone in the technology’s move toward commercialization.

The Chinese manufacturer said the result was confirmed by Germany’s TÜV Rheinland. The achievement beats the company’s previous record of 21.65%, set last month.

The combined use of trackers and bifacial modules can result in significant power gains, but they are not distributed equally. For single-axis tracking R&D teams, the process of optimizing the output from arrays that use bifacial modules requires experimentation and a steep learning curve in terms of what is going on underneath the module.

Researchers from Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology have created flexible solar cells made of crystalline silicon. They claim to have stretched a crystalline silicon cell’s surface by around 95% while maintaining conversion efficiency of around 19%.

The R&D facility in Navi Mumbai will house three automation labs to ensure EV charger design and development as per the international quality and safety standards for cells and battery packs, rapid prototyping, and reliability and environmental tests.